1907] The American Goshawk near Ottawa 97 



happened. He was absolutely forced to turn back. The next 

 day, seeing that this hawk had established himself there and 

 was making a practice of withholding his field from him, Mr, 

 Sack took a gun along. Even this did not deter the hawk, which 

 immediately resorted to the tactics of the past two days. This 

 time it proved his undoing ; a well directed shot put him out of 

 commission. The farmer gave the bird to a friend, who mounted 

 it, when it was seen by the writer. 



One morning last February, Mr. Hugo Paeseler, a farmer 

 of High Falls, Labelle Co., Quebec, went into his wood-lot near 

 his house. Not far in, he noticed that a fierce battle must have 

 been waged there not long before, because in a space of about 

 ten by ten feet the freshly fallen snow was plowed up and 

 liberally sprinkled with blood and feathers. Searching around 

 for the principals of the fight, he found about ten steps away a. 

 large adult goshawk, wings spread, frozen stiff and pretty 

 badly used generall3^ About the same distance in the opposite 

 direction from the scene of hostilities, he found a barred owl, 

 dead, but yet warm. It had alighted on a little spruce after 

 the battle, from where it had fallen off, as the condition of the 

 snow on the spruce and below showed, and then had crawled 

 in a small log that lay with its hollowness right near the owl. 

 Although she apparently had died later than the goshawk, she 

 was more ripped up than he. The farmer, knowing the rudi- 

 ments of taxidermy, skinned and "stuffed" the goshawk in 

 this case that is the appropriate word ,of the owl he could only 

 do so with the head, which he thus kept. They were later seen 

 by the writer. The theory is that the goshawk sallying forth 

 early in the morning in quest of prey, made a mistake and 

 pounced upon the barred owl, which was probably then return- 

 ing home from its nightly foraging'. She, however, did not feel 

 like being reduced to a breakfast for the goshawk, and so gave 

 battle, with the result that both had no more use for breakfasts. 

 It is not likely that the owl would attack the larger goshawk, 

 but the goshawk, especially when hungry, does not let the size 

 of his quarry deter him much. Last October a farmer in East 

 Templeton, Quebec, near Ottawa, shot a beautiful adult female 

 goshawk in the act of doing away with a large Plymouth Rock 

 rooster. That fight in the snowy woods that morning must 

 certainly have been a battle royal, and an interesting sight 

 could one have witnessed it. 



Ottawa, Ont., August 16th, 1907. 



